A Friend in Need
by Baltimore Raven
Summary: Joe takes the nighttime desk shift at the police station, but his boredom quickly becomes stressed frustration when a close friend appears at the station - in handcuffs. A Joe/Bess mini-mystery. (Had to take down and re-post the story. More info on that inside.)


**A/N: I just want to say thanks to everyone who reviewed "Friends!" It means so much to me when I see a review. Oh, and forgive me because I know pretty much nothing about computer forensics or police department regulations. **

**I do especially want to give a huge thanks to the police officers that courageously guard the people of this country! Y'all rock! **

**Rated T for violence and a reference to alcohol (there's a drunk driver). **

_***Update**_******: I'm so sorry about any confusion over the story! I realized that my dividing lines weren't working when I published, so the only way I knew to put them in was to take down the story and put it back up (thankfully I think I've got this figured out now.) Thank you so much for putting up with me and my trial-and-error!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, or any other affiliated characters and/or places (no matter how much I wish I did). I also do not own Ford or it's mentioned product, the Fiesta. **

Joe Hardy threw the little rubber ball against the wall, catching it with ease when it bounced back to him. To say he was bored would be a major understatement. In fact, he was only a third of the way through his desk shift at the police station, and he had already resorted to the rubber ball, James Bond impressions, and even skimming book on forensic science; something his brother would rag him about for weeks.

"Yeah, Hardy, take the night shift. It's _awesome_," he mocked to himself, recalling a conversation he had had with a senior officer in the department.

Okay, so maybe police officer wasn't quite the gig he had been wanting. Apparently, it would be quite a while before he could get away from night shifts at the desk and see some action. Even writing out traffic tickets sounded more interesting than what he was doing right then.

The windowed front door of the station opened. Joe couldn't see it, but he heard the beep of the electronic bell and could feel the cool night air rushing in.

"I told you, I'm _innocent!"_ a small, feminine voice pleaded.

_No. _

It couldn't be.

He looked up, rubber ball in hand, and saw two officers, Cliff and John, half-dragging a blonde woman inside. Joe stood and felt himself go slightly slack-jawed. He met the woman's eyes and could barely get out, "Bess?"

* * *

"Look, just…" Joe sighed as he sat down at the metal table in the interrogation room. "Tell me what happened."

"Okay," she took a deep breath, comforted by the fact that it was Joe questioning her. "I was walking down Seventh Avenue, and when I approached the intersection at Ninth, there was a couple arguing."

He nodded. So far, this was sounding like a misunderstanding; though he did know that innocence could be made or lost with just a few words. "Can you tell me anything about the couple?"

"They had to be pretty wealthy." At Joe's look she specified, "The guy was wearing a leather jacket and what had to be two-hundred-dollar jeans."

"How on earth do you-" Joe caught himself, remembering that he was talking to Bess. "Never mind." He waved his hand, allowing her to go on.

"The woman was wearing a red dress that I've seen before; it's an Amy Matto that goes for two-hundred eighty-four dollars. And that's on discount!" she leaned back and crossed her arms. "And don't even get me started on her shoes."

Joe nodded, grinning a little. "Okay, I think I get the picture. So what happened?"

Bess sighed and looked at the floor. "That's the part that I don't really want to talk about."

He stared at her for a minute, a gentle look in his eyes. Something caught his trained sight, though, and he leaned forward to run a strand of her hair through his fingers. Dried blood had clumped there. Its color stood out against her hair, a reddish brown nearly resembling the color of rust on a nail. It harshly contrasted against the blonde color of her hair. As he looked at it, Bess stared at his face. She was scared.

Joe sighed and let her hair go. "Bess, what is going on?" he whispered.

"That's the problem, Joe!" she cried, spreading her hands helplessly at either side of her head. "I don't _know_ what's going on!"

"Bess," he spoke gently, recognizing the panic that crowded her features. When she didn't respond, he quickly took her hands in his and laid them on the table. "Bess, it's okay." He rubbed her wrist with his thumb in an effort to comfort her.

Nodding, she pressed her lips into a thin line and said, "Like I said, they were arguing; yelling at each-other. I was just going to walk past them, seeing as it was late and I don't like being out on the streets at night by myself. But just as I was approaching the corner, the woman pulled a gun and just shot the guy without another word!"

Joe frowned. "Just like that? No last words to him or anything?"

"That's it. Blood went everywhere. I just stood there… I guess I was in some sort of shock. But all of the sudden the woman came at me and I blacked out. Next thing I know I'm waking up on that same corner with a gun in my hand!"

"Wow," Joe shook his head. "Bess, I know you didn't do it. So why is everybody so set on making you look guilty?"

"Because," she met his eye as she said, "A traffic camera caught the whole thing. And _I _killed him."

* * *

"…and that concludes case report number three-six-nine-two- four." Cliff finished, flipping closed a manila folder containing case information.

Joe fought the urge to faceplant the table, and not because he had been sitting in the meeting for the past hour; but because after everything Bess still looked guilty.

"Thank you, Officer Burns." Chief Raymond Millburn nodded. The police chief was fairly new to his position, seeing as he had only been on it since Ezra Collig had retired six months before, but he had been more than competent in handling the department. A man in his late thirties, he had nearly twenty years of experience as an officer.

Joe liked him, thankfully. The only downside had been being assigned the night shift. At this point he was actually happy that he had been assigned it, though. If the twenty-two-year-old hadn't been there that night, he may have not known about Bess' situation in time to make an attempt at clearing her.

Noticing Joe's frustrated expression, Chief Millburn motioned to him and asked, "Is there anything you would like to add, Officer Hardy?"

"Yeah, Hardy," John sneered from the other side of the conference table. "Something wrong here? 'Cause after watching that interrogation video, I'd say you must have a thing for her. All the hand-holding and the whispering-"

"Chief, I need to talk to you." Joe said, sparing John nothing more than an indignant sideways glance.

Millburn nodded and led the blonde out the door and into his office down the hall. Sitting down at his desk chair, the department leader asked, "What's wrong?"

Joe, who had remained standing, braced his hands on the back of a worn chair which sat in front of the desk. "I just don't believe it." He shook his head.

"Don't believe what?" Millburn asked, folding his hands in front of him.

"Look, don't take this the wrong way, okay?" At the chief's nod, Joe reluctantly went on. "I know her."

"_What?" _Millburn all-out exploded. "Don't you know that if you're personally involved with a suspect-"

"Then I'm not supposed to be on the case, I know. Bess and I are good friends; I've known her since I was five, and we've worked some amateur cases together."

Millburn scrubbed at his face with his hand, now frustrated, but Joe went on. "I had to stay with her, okay? You don't know Bess like I do; she gets terrified when she has no idea what's going on. And having someone here that she knows will stop her from flipping out and keep us from having to bring in a psychiatrist."

"But I can't keep you on this case. And anyways, you saw the video. She killed Jack Tracy-"

"Ray." Joe stated bluntly, "She didn't do it."

Sighing, Millburn leaned back and asked, "Then how can you explain the video evidence?"

He hesitated before answering, "I can't right now."

"If she's from River Heights, in _Illinois_, then what is she doing in Bayport?!"

"She said she was here to visit my brother and me before she left on a six-month college-credit trip to Paris."

The elder officer raised an eyebrow. "Six-months in Paris? For college credit?"

"She wants to be a fashion designer. Look Ray, I can help."

Moaning, Chief Millburn felt a stress headache coming on.

"Come on," Joe went on. He wouldn't leave without his boss at least hearing him out. "You know me; you know I would never hold up an investigation."

"Alright… but only because I know you so well, Joe, so you had better not let me down. And if anything happens, it'll be your job, understood?"

He nodded. "Loud and clear."

* * *

"You're sure?" Joe asked Lindsay Bretts, a brunette woman in her thirties, who was also the department's forensic video analyst.

"Yeah," she nodded reluctantly, taking her eyes away from the computer screen. "I've been over this thing again and again. I'm sorry, Joe."

"No," he shook his head and pointed to the screen. "Don't be, just fast forward,"

Lindsay did as requested, and Bess was shown shooting Jack Tracy before walking off into the night.

When the video froze again, Joe seemed to be in some sort of trance. "Hold on a minute," he murmured, "She's walking south on Ninth Avenue, which means at the end of that block there are the cameras at Ninth and Eleventh. Can we get records from those?"

Lindsay nodded. "Yeah, but it might take me a little bit. Can you give me five minutes?"

"Sure," Joe, though he was fighting the will to speed Lindsay on, got up and walked towards the door. "I'll just come back." With that, he walked down a few halls and eventually made it to the holding cells.

"Hey, how you doing, Hardy?" asked the sergeant in charge of the prisoners.

"Honestly, I'm not too great, Steve." Joe replied in a weary tone.

The sergeant didn't look up from his paperwork when he inquired, "So what can I do for you?"

Joe put his hands on his hips and said, "I need to see somebody."

"Oh?" he glanced up now, his interest peaked. "Why?"

This was a more difficult question to answer. Joe didn't want to say he wanted to go in there and check on Bess, just to make sure she was okay. But he needed to talk to her, and it would help if there was any more information she could tell him.

"I'm just checking status… maybe getting a bit more info on a case," was the reply.

"Alright," Steve unlocked the door leading to the holding cells, holding it open for Joe, who nodded as he passed through. The door swung closed behind him and its resounding _clang_ echoed throughout the room.

Just past the middle of the room was Bess' cell. Unfortunately, the girl had been situated right next to a college kid arrested for drunk driving. The guy was still loopy and was apparently trying to flirt with Bess, who remained sitting on the metal bench as she stared at the floor.

"Come on, baby, please just talk to me!" the guy went on sluggishly, grasping the bars the separated the two cells.

"Hey, lay off." Joe snapped at him.

Bess looked up. "Joe," she stood and quickly walked towards him. "Oh, I'm so glad it's you."

"Are you doing okay?" he asked her gently, knowing that at ease was probably something that she wasn't.

She nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"How long has he been going on like that?"

"I don't even know," Bess shook her head. "Minutes, hours, I honestly have no idea."

Joe took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "Just… don't worry about. Look, I've got Lindsay analyzing every video relevant to the case. I trust her; she's got fifteen years of experience in this field."

"Joe," she breathed, closing her eyes. Slow fear was swallowing her mind. "I did it. You saw the video."

He shook his head. "No, don't say that."

"Why not?" Her voice became strained, "If I did it?"

"Because if you say it then I have to take it down as a confession. And I can't do that, Bess; I'm not writing your confession."

She sighed, turning away from the bars and pressing a hand to her face.

"Bess," Joe called to her, frustrated. He braced his forearm on the bars, above his head. Staring at the floor he muttered, "Why am I the only person who can't believe she did it?"

"It's like everyone's talking loony around here, huh?" Bess asked quietly. Sadly, Joe realized that she was right. "I thought I was innocent," she went on, "Until they showed me the footage. Now I don't know what to believe."

Joe shook his head resignedly. "I just don't think you could have done it."

"But that gun has only _my _fingerprints on it, _I'm_ on the video, _I_ woke up with a weapon in my hand!"

"That doesn't mean anything."

"Oh, it doesn't?"

"Do you even know his name?" Joe asked bringing his face closer to the bars. He suddenly seemed to tower over Bess intimidatingly.

She shrank back slightly. "Who's?"

"Who's? The murder victim!" he shouted.

Crossing her arms, Bess glanced at the floor guiltily. "No."

A twinkle appeared in Joe's eye, and he suddenly went back to his caring self. "See? You don't even know his name. What motive would a small-town girl like you have for murdering a guy all the way in Bayport when you don't even know his name?"

"Here it is," she retorted directly, "You."

The young officer frowned. "Me?"

"And your family," Bess nodded. "You guys are my connection to Bayport. If this was a guy trying to come after you-"

"Which he most probably wasn't."

"-then that gives me a motive." Her replies were direct; clean-cut. The bitterness in the room was so thick it could be cut with a knife.

"Don't you think that theory is a little out there, even for us?"

"Just stop! You know that there's footage of me killing him!"

"Bess," Joe's hands went through the bars and took her wrists. It seemed a bit forceful, but he had to get this through to her. "Please! Just believe for me, just for a minute, will you?! I _need_ you to believe here." She watched him with fearful eyes, but hung onto every word. "I need you to be Bess; that kind, stylish detective from a small town in Illinois."

Tears welled in her eyes and confusion thickly clouded her thoughts. "Joe, what is going on here?" she whispered.

"I don't know yet," he moved his grasp from her wrists to interlace his fingers with hers. "But I'm going to find out."

* * *

"Anything?" Joe asked tensely, hastening back into Lindsay's office.

She nodded. "Yeah, check this out." Clicking an on-screen play button, she and Joe watched intently as an image of Bess came across the screen. She walked up to her car, a lime green Ford, and drove away.

Joe shook his head. "This isn't right."

"I'm sorry," Lindsay told him. "This is from a traffic camera at Ninth and Eleventh-"

"No," he interrupted her. "That's not Bess' car!"

"Well, did she fly out here and get a rental?"

"Not according to any airlines or car rental agencies."

Lindsay frowned. "I thought the file said she owns a 2012 Ford Fiesta in lime green?"

"She does. But," he pointed to the screen which still showed the car. "Where's the bumper sticker I bought her when we went to London?"

"What bumper sticker?"

Joe was excited now, and talking so fast that Lindsay was having a hard time keeping up with him. "Two years ago we went to London on a case. While we were there, I bought her a Union Jack bumper sticker. She's had it on her car ever since."

"Maybe she took it off?"

"Okay, then tell me this: where's the dent in the bumper from where we backed into a space shuttle launch pad?"

Lindsay shot a confused look up at him.

"Don't ask," he waved it off. "My point is, that isn't her car."

"Which means?"

Joe felt a small, hopeful smile emerge. "Which means she didn't do it."

* * *

"Joe! Again, this is _very simple_." George told him from over the phone. "Just pull up a readout of the video data sets."

His fingers hovered over the keyboard, unsure of himself. "…and how do I do that again?"

"Ugh!" George moaned, and Joe figured she was probably taking the phone away from her ear and smacking her forehead. If there was anything that she hated, it was trying to explain computers to a slow learner. "Control-D!"

Joe pressed down on the Ctrl and D keys, immediately summoning a window filled with rows of letters and numbers that made absolutely no sense to him. "Okay?"

"Good, he knows how to use the keyboard." George's voice rang with sarcasm. If she had been there in Bayport, Joe totally would have thrown her a friendly punch. "Now, do you see a row titled 'PXL' with a number sign?"

After some scanning, Joe gave her an affirmative.

"Alright, read those numbers to me."

"It's all in red… says one-three-four dash two-four-seven," he read off for her. It didn't really mean anything to him, but to George it did.

"Joe," the young woman sounded pretty happy now. "That's the pixel readout; it means something doesn't match up. The video's a fake. Somebody took themselves out and put Bess in."

He grinned, but it faded when he thought of something. "How come Lindsay didn't catch this?"

"Who?"

"She's a forensic video analyst with like fifteen years of experience. It doesn't make sense." Joe frowned in thought. Something didn't add up.

"How long has she worked there?"

Shrugging, he replied, "I don't know, maybe three weeks?" Granted, it was a short time for a person to work somewhere. But even in that time Joe had come to trust her.

"Joe, I'd suggest you do some poking in on this girl."

And something told him that she was right.

* * *

Lindsay Bretts was the only person in her office. It was safe to proceed.

Typing various commands into her custom-built laptop, she summoned the video footage from the Ninth and Eleventh traffic camera records.

"Sorry, Bessie." She grinned evilly as she continued to punch commands into the computer. In a sidebar, a Union Jack appeared, and the computer expert dragged it over to a still showing Bess' car. After referencing a picture from a social networking site which displayed the vehicle and its bumper sticker, she applied the image to the video in the correct space on the bumper.

After angling it and adding the correct lighting, she replayed the video. The car with bumper sticker moved in sync with each-other.

"Looks like you're going to prison."

"More like you are," Joe Hardy's voice suddenly filled the room. Lindsay whirled around, standing up from her chair. Joe stood in the doorway, his arms crossed.

Her eyes widened, and she struggled to keep her voice cool. "Officer Hardy. What's going on here?"

"Don't play dumb, Lindsay. I know what you've been doing." He walked up to her and pulled at her hair, which slid right off to unfurl a mass of blonde. The brunette had all been a wig. "You murdered your own boyfriend and tried to pin it on the first person that came around."

"What?!" her eyebrows furrowed, and she began to stammer with her mouth hanging slightly open. "Why on earth-"

"That's enough, Ms. Bretts." Joe told her firmly. Slowly, he added, "That's a nice blouse; must have cost you a fair bit."

She frowned. What did her clothes have to do with anything? "What are you getting at?"

"It sure looks like a designer brand; all-new even. And why does something tell me that a girl on a Bayport police salary wouldn't blow all her money on clothes?"

"Uh… outlet malls?" Lindsay tried to sound as though it was obvious. "Why?"

This was when Joe got firm, stepping right up to her so they were face-to-face. "Jack Tracy was sending you money, and a lot of it. But here's the kicker," he rasped, "Once that flow of funds began to trickle out, you cut it off completely and tried to get rid of the evidence."

"You can't prove that." Lindsay swallowed hard, her voice shaky. Now backed up against her desk, she reached behind her back and her hand found a coffee cup with no lid. Taking it into her hand she swept around and flung several ounces of the liquid onto her laptop. She spun around as steaming coffee ran off the desk and onto the floor.

"No!" Joe exclaimed, reaching towards the now dead PC.

"There's no proof." She shook her head defiantly.

"Maybe," a new voice said, and Joe turned to see Chief Millburn making his entrance. "But we _can_ get you on deliberate obstruction of justice and lying to multiple officers of the law."

Lindsay looked at him hard. "But that little Marvin girl is still going to prison for Jack's murder. There isn't enough evidence against me."

"Oh, I don't know," Millburn said lightheartedly. "It just might."

"Chief," yet another new voice sounded off. The other officers let through a confident-looking George Fayne. "We may actually have the evidence."

* * *

"She hacked the traffic cameras?" Bess echoed Joe's most recent words.

"That she did," he grinned, guiding Bess through the station and towards the door. It was seven in the evening and night had already descended, bringing its cool air along with it.

Bess walked next to Joe, his arm protectively around her shoulders as they left the building. "Freedom!" the woman breathed, spreading her arms out.

"Please," he sounded somewhat exasperated, "I've been in there since ten P.M. last night. You have no idea…"

"Oh, yes, because a cold metal cell right next to a drunken maniac is better than desk shift."

Joe grinned and said to her, "Oh, _so_ much." Suddenly the empty feeling in his stomach broke through to his brain. He was most definitely hungry. "So… Mr. Pizza on me?"

"Yes! Oh, please yes!" she emphasized. "All I've had to eat since they brought me in was two stale doughnuts! How do you police officers _survive?!"_

"Well Bess, it's a mixture of strength, endurance, and a solid state of mind." He laid out for her in a dramatic tone.

"You just clock out to the burger place, don't you?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

**A/N: Like? Dislike? Let me know! Thanks for reading! :)**

**hlahabibty: Thank you so much! **

**Caranath: Thanks for the tips! Now that I look at it, I think you're right and it does flow oddly. I'll keep working on that. And I'm sorry about the name confusion, I wrote this awhile back as "Night Shift" and didn't realize you had a story by the same name! So I've fixed it and hopefully this one will work. **


End file.
